Chapter 96

The city lights twinkled below Camille's penthouse like fallen stars trapped on earth. She stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, arms wrapped around herself, watching the tiny cars move through the streets forty floors below. Behind her, Alexander poured two glasses of red wine, the soft gurgle of liquid filling the comfortable silence between them.

It had been three days since the press the Phoenix project has issue and they sorted it out. Three days of relative peace. The thought felt strange to Camille, peace was not something she had known since finding those divorcepapers twenty five months ago.

"Your thoughts seem far away," Alexander said, approaching with the wine glasses. His footsteps were quiet on the plush carpet.

Camille accepted the glass, her fingers brushing his. That small touch sent warmth spreading up her arm."Not far. Just... processing everything."

Alexander stood beside her at the window. Unlike many men who felt the need to fill silence, he seemed content to shae it with her. That was one of the many things she had come to appreciate about him.

"Victoria called earlier," Camille said after taking a sip of wine. "The latest reports show Kane Industries stock has fully recovered. The Phoenix Grid project is back on schedule."

Alexander nodded. "That's good news."

"Yes." Camille turned from the window. "But that's not what I want to talk about tonight."

She moved to the cream-colored sofa and sat down, tucking one leg beneath her. The softness of the cushions welcomed her tired body. Alexander followed, sitting close enough for comfort but with space between them, always respectful of her boundaries.

"What would you like to talk about?" he asked, his dark eyes studying her face.

Camille took a deep breath. "Us. This thing between us that we keep dancing around."

Alexander's expression remained calm, but she noticed how his fingers tightened slightly around the wine glass. "I was wondering when we'd have this conversation."

"Is that why you've never pushed?"

"Partly." He set his glass on the coffee table. "I didn't want to rush you. After everything with Stefan and Rose...I know trust doesn't come easily to you anymore."

The mention of their names didn't sting like it once had. Progress, Camille thought.

"For a long time," she began, staring into her wine, "I thought that part of me was dead. The part that could feel...this." She gestured between them.ctoria taught me to channel everything into revenge. To see people as pieces on a chessboard."

"And now?" Alexander's voice was quiet.

Camille looked up at him. "Now I find myself thinking about you when you're not there. Wanting to tell you things as soon as they happen. Wondering what you'd think about decisions I'm making." She paused. "It scares me."

"Why does it scare you?"

She set her glass beside his. "Because I trusted before, and it almost destroyed me. Because Victoria warned me not to let emotions cloud my judgment.Because I'm not sure who I am when I'm not fighting anymore."

Alexander shifted closer, close enough that she could smell his cologne, cedar and bergamot, nothing flashy.Like him.

"Camille," he said, her name soft on his lips,"doyou remember when we first met? At the hospital in Boston?"

She nodded slowly, memories stirring from a time that felt distant now, belonging to a different version of herself.

"I've known you longer than Victoria has," he continued gently. "I knew you before all this." He gestured to her current self. "I knew the real Camille, the woman with compassion and strength who saw beyond her own problemns."

Tears threatened at the corners of Camille's eyes. She blinked them back, unwilling to cry, a habit Victoria had trained out of her.

"The woman you're describing sounds like a stranger to me now," she confessed.

"She's not." Alexander reached out slowly, giving her time topull away if she wanted. When she didn't, he took her hand in his. "She's still there. I see her when you work on the Phoenix Grid, not just as revenge or to prove something, but because you believe in what it can do for people. I see her when you talk about the foundation you're building to help other women."

His thumb traced gentle circles on her palm. The simple touch sent waves of warmth through her entire body.

"That's why l've never pushed," he continued. "I wanted you to find your own way back to that woman. The one who doesn't just destroy, but builds. The one who doesn't just hate, but loves."

The word hung in the air between them. Love. Not spoken as a declaration, but as a possibility.

Camille fought the instinct to withdraw her hand, to retreat behind the walls Victoria had helped her build."What if that woman is gone for good? What if Victoria's creation is all that's left?"

Alexander shook his head. "She trained you to survive, to fight back. That was necessary. But Victoria Kane didn't create you, Camille. She helped shape you, but your core, who you truly are,that was always there."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small. When he opened his palm, Camille gasped.Lying there was a silver pendant in the shape of a delicate rose.

"You left this withAlexander said softly. "In the hospital. You said it would protect me like it had protected you."

Camille stared at the pendant. She remembered it now, a gift from her grandfather when she was sixteen.She had worn it every day until...

"I've kept it safe," Alexander said. "Waiting for the right moment to return it to you."

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the pendant. The familiar weight of it in her palm unlocked memories she had buried, of who she had been before the betrayals, before the pain.

"I don't know if I can be that woman again," Camille whispered.

"You don't have to be who you were," Alexander replied. "None of us can go backward. But you can bring the best parts of who you were into who you're becoming."

He moved closer, the space between them now just inches.

"I care about you, Camille. Not just Camille Kane, Victoria's creation. Not just Camille Lewis, the woman who was betrayed. All of you. Every version. Every layer."

The walls around Camille's heart, walls built through months of pain and rebuilding trembled. Not falling,not yet,but weakening.

"I don't want to make promises I can't keep," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know if |can trust like that again."

"I'm not asking for promises," Alexander said. "Just... possibility. The chance to see where this goes,one day at a time."

Camille looked down at the silver rose pendant in her palm, then back up at Alexander. His eyes held no demands, only patient hope.

Something shifted inside her, not the calculated moves of a chess player Victoria had taught her to be,but something more organic. Growth pushing through concrete.

"One day at a time," she repeated. "I think I can manage that."

The smile that spread across Alexander's face warmed her more than the wine had. He lifted his hand,hesitated, then gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The simple gesture made her breath catch.

"That's all I'm asking for," he said.

Outside, the city continued its nighttime dance of lights and sounds. But inside the penthouse,the world had narrowed to just the two of them, a man and woman finding their way toward each other through the wreckage of the past and the uncertainty of the future.

Camille looked at the silver rose pendant once more before closing her fingers around it. For the first time in longer than she could remember, the future held something beyond revenge. Something that felt dangerously like hope.

"Stay for dinner?" she asked, her voice steadier now. "I'm not much of a cook, but we could order in."

Alexander's smile deepened. "I'd like that very much."

As they moved to the kitchen to look through takeout menus, Camille felt lighter than she had in months.The path ahead was still uncertain, filled with threats from Rose, challenges with the Phoenix Grid, and her complicated relationship with Victoria. But for tonight, in this quiet moment with Alexander, she allowed herself to believe in possibilities beyond revenge.

And somewhere deep inside, in a place Victoria's training hadn't reached, the woman she used to be, the one who would sit with a stranger in a hospital, stirred to life again.